What is the Chrome Web Lab? Web Lab is a series of real world Chrome experiments that bring the workings of the Internet to life, with the goal of inspiring people on the possibilities of the Web. Everything on offer in the Science Museum in London can be accessed online from anywhere in the world here How long has the Chrome Web Lab been in development? Web Lab has been in development for more than a year. The first phase involved a huge amount of research and development, scoping and iterating as many of the experiments on show have never been attempted before.How did you choose the five experiments in the Web Lab?

The idea is to bring different web technologies to life through a series of five experiments: * Universal Orchestra: An internet-powered eight-piece robotic orchestra * Sketchbots: Custom-built robots able to take and sketch photographs * Data Tracer: A map that traces where the world’s online information is stored * Teleporter: A series of web-enabled periscopes * Lab Tag Explorer: A real-time visualisation of all Web Lab visitors Each Web Lab experiment uses a modern web technology to explore a particular idea in computer science. Web Lab demonstrates the power and potential of the Internet to in-museum and online visitors of all ages and backgrounds.Which of the five was the most difficult to set up and why? They were all equally ambitious ideas to try to bring to life. One of the most difficult involved installing a domed camera inside a fish tank (complete with sharks!) in South Africa that will allow both online visitors and people in the museum to experience it live from the inside the tank in 360 degrees. This involved getting a high-speed web connection into the aquarium, water-proofing the camera, installing additional lighting and writing bespoke code to stream all of the video in real-time into the Chrome browser. You made the leap from Creative Director at a leading London advertising agency to Google – why? I had a fantastic time whilst working at numerous design, digital and advertising agencies and loved every minute of it. But, since launching one of the first ever ISPs in my hometown in Vancouver in 1993, I’ve been fascinated with all the opportunities that the Internet allows for. This job allows me to explore the infinite possibilities that technology brings to creativity.What have you learned since your arrival at Google? I’ve learned incredible amounts of different things since being here. How to work in a truly collaborative environment, to rapidly prototype – launch early and iterate, and other unique ways of working in an engineering-led company. Technology is also the main driver for all our projects and platforms, so everything more or less begins with knowing the magic inside our products and connecting them to the users. How do you keep your focus when you are juggling so many inspirational ideas? I have very talented people working with me. Designers, artists, filmmakers, coders, producers and strategists. We spend a lot of time up front really thinking through and getting to the heart of an idea. Why people would care and what it does for our products. What is the story? Then I let my team run free and bring their magic to the process. They all lead their own ideas and are responsible for all aspects of their projects.Where is the most beautiful place that you have ever been? Inside Paolo Roversi’s photographic studio in Paris, the new Acropolis museum in Athens and walking the High Line in Manhattan in the summer time.What was the last album you bought or downloaded? The most recent Guided By Voices CD. Very cool indeed.What do you do to unwind and relax? I’ve got two little boys aged 2 and 4; I’m not sure what you mean by relax, unwind?

Successful actress Poppy Elliott, has starred in Hollywood movies and popular UK TV drama… as well as Quiet Mark (which quietly rewards world’s industry leaders for making life quieter), she has the world’s companies wanting to win Quiet Marks, from Hollywood companies to fork lift truck manufacturers.

What is Quiet Mark? It’s new and it’s important. It’s the not-for-profit kite-mark award programme for the world’s quietest-designs of machines, products and places, the next generation arm of the Noise Abatement Society. We have a Quiet Mark online directory too. It’s the first global brand showcase of quiet-product design, a one-stop-shop for consumers to buy everyday quiet products. www.quietmark.com To validate the quietness of products we have a team of sound experts at ANC – UK’s leading acousticians. But we’re not dogmatists. Quiet Mark is absolutely not about telling every-one to tip-toe around being mute, or ticking off any type of big expression of sound, rather it promotes the benefits of creating a sound-scape of Quiet-Time to re-charge. Quiet mark is a simple label to help you know you are buying one of most low-noise products available.How long has it been going and how well is it doing? Six months after launch we signed up as partners 35 leading global brands including: Lexus, Mitsubishi, Philips, Sennheiser, Panasonic and Yamaha. Lexus are patron sponsor following their iconic ‘Shhh..Join the Quiet Revolution’ campaign. Twentieth Century Fox have taken it up for the promotion of Mallick’s Tree of Life. Win a Quiet Life in 2012 is our monthly national competition to win up to £8,000 every month of latest quiet technology and experiences. As a launch we couldn’t have created more noise or more excitement. It has epic potential because of generic appeal and has never been done before.You’re an actress as well as being a marketer – how has this been relevant in shaping Quiet Mark? On stage or wherever you’re performing there are three things that matter: Obviously knowing the part; understanding the role and being true to the meaning of the role; engaging with and winning the belief of the audience in what you’re doing. In that respect it has points of similarity with marketing, all the world’s a stage..How important is sound in our lives? Sound deeply affects us, it plays on our emotions, from the tone of our voice, to orchestrated music, to silence, to the sound of machines which surround us and which symbolise the civilisation in which we live. As we become more sophisticated and inventive we find more ways to emancipate humanity, through travel, through getting machines to do more work (such as washing up), through aids to cleanliness and through communication devices and media platforms. It’s brilliant but it comes at a cost. The cost is pollution and the most insidious form of pollution is noise. Tests show the noise levels in some restaurants exceeds that of a jumbo jet taking off. Noise is a bigger problem than we think: we all have ears, they are very precious and often not looked after.How hard is to achieve change? We seem to have hit a wellspring, people clearly want more peace. Any significant change takes time, effort and persistence. But understanding something has to be done about the noise problem is gaining traction rapidly. Industry’s big and little brands working together, both with consumers and with catylising forces like Quiet Mark, have power to revolutionise the world’s aural soundscape. Let me tell you about the building of the Shard in London, Europe’s tallest building, 1,200 people working on site 24/7/365 over three years. It’s next to Guys Hospital – so building quietly was important. We are awarding Mace the Building Contractors a “Quiet Mark” because they did a fantastic job doing a brilliant job without raising the voices or the sound levels.You suggest that sound is one of the most important factors in modern life – why? Ten years ago you did not see nearly every other person with a pair of head-phones on walking down the street. there is a battle on to escape from the natural sounds around us and to control the sound going into our ears, minds, hearts. Never has there been a more passionate mass movement to escape the aural connection of the world around us with sales of noise-cancellation headsets booming, we can now choose to block off stressful urban noise, to protect our focus and concentration or even run away from the reality of the world we have created, to find comfort and pleasure in sounds reflecting our heart’s desire. The mega-trend for noise-reduction is here and everyone has a part to play.What’s next for Quiet Mark? Quiet Bark, we’re finding the quietest solutions to gently and naturally keep excessive wooffing at bay. Baby Quiet, creating the aural balance the little people really need. Quiet Time – finding at least an hour to say nothing each day to tune in to still small voice of calm. Quiet Aeroplanes, Sound-scaping Cities, Loving our Ears and finding more great ambassadors from every industry to join the Quiet Revolution…

Simon Gunning is Global Head of Digital Media and Technology at advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH). We catch up with him, taking a good look into his Little Grey Cells…When did you first get into tech? I worked in the record business for long time, managing record producers and artists, and it was clear that it was an industry that was getting into trouble. At the same time, billions of pounds were spent trying to prevent the Y2K disaster, and the dot com bubble was growing. So I went to work for a company called Flextech television, which became Virgin Media television. Quite extraordinarily I was appointed head of business development, and my job included setting up web sites for the four biggest channels in pay TV at the time. I had to set up their presence online, in mobile telephony and red button interactivity, which was seen to be the future of the world as we then knew it.Is digital the future of communications? The future of communications will be the same vibrant mix of channels that we’ve seen for the last 10 years. It will be governed by consumer demand and expectation and efficiency of the channel. TV is not in any trouble, it doesn’t need any augmentation. The problem lies with the audience expecting to do more things and wanting more from brands. So what do audiences want? Audiences want things faster. A one-way communication broadcast doesn’t deliver on that. On efficiency – TV is expensive. The problem is that the cheaper options in television are less effective and reach smaller audiences – which is not the case in digital communications, where you can get to a large audience effectively with a smaller amount of money. The problem is that the stakes are so much higher with how you communicate with your audience once you get there.What has working at BBH taught you? Dogma can be good. If you look after the work, other stuff looks after itself. The only thing to focus on is the quality of the work that you put out the door. Just do that and everything else will come together. Now I don’t just mean the creative solution, I mean everything that goes with it: from the strategy to the creative to the making of the things… and then operating them. If you only think about what it is that you are putting in front of people, then good things will happen.Has there never been a better time to be in communications? Absolutely. I am in a place here where I can make a broader variety of communications assets than ever before. Having made records, that was lovely; having worked for television companies – I thought ‘there’s no broader canvas than this’; when I worked at Yahoo I thought ‘this is incredible’. But arriving at BBH, I found the breadth of what we are doing just extraordinary. We have to view ourselves as product companies, and as such, completely rid ourselves of any limitations as to how we execute a creative solution. I don’t think there’s another industry where you can do that. If you work in media, you are limited by the core platforms of what you are trying to sell. If you work for a brand, you are limited by the product. In communications agencies, we are free of the restrictions of format. Communications is media and utility and entertainment – and as such there’s never been a better time to be working here.What do you do to relax? I swear at Arsenal and Arsene Wenger, and I play the guitar obsessively. I hide guitars from my wife – that’s my hobby. The secret is to buy guitars of a similar colour and move them around frequently. The most beautiful place you’ve ever been? 7.45 on a weekday evening at HighburyThe last CD you bought? The brilliant White Rabbits LP – Milk Famous.The most insane job you ever did? My first job after University, in 1992, was promoting Reading Festival. I was paid about £60 a week, and, being the only person under 40, found myself representing the Festival, hanging around with the likes of Kurt Cobain and New Order. The highlight of the two years of madness has to be either Flavour Flav running round Reading town centre wearing his big clock having lost the band’s bus or standing on stage with Nirvana as they played to 60,000 people. I thought life would always be like that and though BBH is fantastic, I have to say that was pretty good.What else can we look forward to from BBH in the near future? We are making some very interesting things that do not directly relate to client work, and we’re doing it in a very responsible way. We’re not betting the farm or anything – we are taking the lead from our in-house brand venture company Zag – and making useful stuff. There’s our game platform that we’ve created called Chuck Studios – and there’s a product in the US which I love called While You Were Off: when you turn your phone on again after a flight (for example) it pulls bits of information from the net to let you know what’s been happening – not news, not football but stuff from the internet and your social networks – its an iPhone version of the classic pink While You Were Out Memo pads of old.

One-time keyboard player for industrial band Psychic TV, Douglas Rushkoff’s 10 best-selling books on new media and popular culture have been translated into more than 30 languages. He is technology and media commentator for CNN, and has taught and lectured around the world about media, technology and economics. His latest book: Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age dissects our relationship with computer code and is a call to arms in our digital age. So, Rushkoff, do you seriously believe regular, normal people should have to learn to program? Yes. If not today, then next year, next decade, or next century. When humans acquired speech we didn’t learn just how to listen, but also how to talk. When we acquired text we didn’t learn just how to read, but how to write. Now that we’ve built computers, we should know not just how to be users, but how to be programmers. It could take a while – until a group of hackers take down the banking system, or simply until people realise that we are inhabiting man-made environments that we know little or nothing about. We don’t realise what the worlds we are living in were built to do. Kids spend time in Facebook actually believing the purpose of the program is to help them make friendships. They don’t realise it’s there to monetise their social graphs. They aren’t the customers; they are the product. So even if they can’t write programs, they need to recognise the biases of the programs they’re using. They need to know what is a pre-existing condition of the universe, and what is simply code. Isn’t that like asking everyone who drives a car to also know how to be an auto mechanic? Why can’t we just be drivers instead of mechanics? I’m happy for us to be drivers, but we’re not. I’m not talking about a distinction between mechanic and driver, where the user is supposed to know how to take apart his laptop and replace the power supply or the RAM. I’m talking about the difference between a driver and a passenger. The passenger is not the true user of the car. If the passenger knows nothing about the car or how it works, he must depend completely on the driver for his reality. Is there a supermarket near here? Where are you taking me? The user with no programming knowledge at all may as well be sitting in the back seat of the car, with curtains covering the windows – or video screens in place of the windows. He may be going to the best places in the best ways, or he may not. He has to trust his driver. I don’t trust the drivers of our software and websites any more than I trusted the people making game shows and commercials for TV. I’m sure they’re nice people, but I don’t believe they all have my best interests at heart. I think at least some of them are more interested in making money for their corporation than they are in serving me or my potential as a human being. I hope that doesn’t sound outrageously cynical. But I think most readers would have to agree that at least a few of the many companies out there are thinking of profit over humanity. And if that’s true, then we might want to be in a situation where we have some capacity to gauge whether the programs we are using to express ourselves, engage with others, and make a living are working on our behalf. Have you changed? Your early books make it sound like you like technology; in this interview, you make it sound like you don’t like technology. No, not at all. I still like technology, and I still like people. I just don’t like what many people and companies are doing to one another through technology. I think I may have been more hopeful in the past that these technologies would be intrinsically liberating. I thought they would free many people from the constraints of exploitative “market thinking.” But in many cases, they seem to have only amplified the effects of the market. People are not really gaining more time or agency so far. And I think the path toward using technology in more personally fulfilling ways begins with understanding what these tools are and how they work.

If you need state-of-the-art computer graphics and 3D projections, then you need Vello Verkhaus, the man behind the insane on-stage visuals for shows such as American Idol and musicians as varied as Coldplay, Kanye West and Skrillex. We persuade him to to take five minutes to allow us a peek at his little grey cells.Did you get into these visual installations from a background in computers and code, fine art, film/video perceptive? I got into these visual installations and experiential projects from a background in Art & Technology studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

What was your big break?

Did I have one yet? Not sure. Hah! That’s why I still live in LA! I think Korn’s concert visuals/DVDs and my collaborations with superstar director Jim Gable and Nathan Karma Cox definitely helped get my feet on the ground in LA. I think this year for my production company V Squared has been amazing, and really brought us into the TV market with our successful execution of the American Idol 11th Season 3D mapped visuals.

What has been the most ridiculous request you have ever had from a client, and did you deliver?

I try to dodge the bullet on ridiculous requests… and send them on to my producers.

What are you working on at the moment? We are working on a visual show for Paris Hilton and a new 3D mapping nightclub visual system in Hollywood. The club is called Sound, featuring lighting design by SJ lighting and environment by iCrave.

Where is VJ/Digital video art headed?

Into the future! I think VJ visual art is becoming an integral and ever more important part of the electronic dance music scene.

What are the most exciting leaps in technology you have witnessed lately in your field?

The biggest leaps we have seen are in hardware and technology. What used to take four computers now only takes one.

Is anything possible these days in projections and visuals?

Seems like anything is possible these days. I just agree.

Will you be branching into hologram projections?

You mean Pepper’s ghost reflections? We are more interested in making truly holographic 3D mapping effects… vs. 1800’s magic trick reflections. When you can truly make a projected, moving hologram, then I will be interested. I studied holography in college, and find the term hologram projection an appalling marketing hoax. It’s like buying an HD mouse. There is no such thing. What do you do to relax?

I hit the gym, hang out with my daughter looking for bugs, swim, hike and chill in my garden. I love watching movies, especially Sci-Fi and hanging with the guys.

What’s the last album you bought/downloaded?

I just bought Simian Mobile Disco Un-Patterns and Squarepusher Ufabulum.

Where’s is the most beautiful place you have ever been, when did you go, and why did it affect you so much?

The most awesome and beautiful place I have ever been was Koh Phangan Thailand and Scuba-diving at Sail Rock. This was the first time I ever really had seen the tropical ocean, and felt like being inside a Finding Nemo movie. I grew to love the ocean so much and learned to dive from one of the nicest guys I have ever met, Chan of Lotus Diving. I think I went in 2001.. oh how the years get fuzzy.

Where do you live, (City, state, etc) and why?

I live in Sherman Oaks CA. Why I live in Los Angeles is because the weather is amazing and this is the capital of the entertainment business in America.

* Blazing a trail based on empowerment through knowledge of code, Kathryn Parsons is co-founder of Decoded, teaching anyone to code in a day. Little Grey Cells peers inside the mind of a 2012 digital mover and shaker.

Tess Alps is the CEO of Thinkbox, the marketing body for commercial TV, and avid campaigner for the end of the TV-versus-Internet argument. She spares a few moments to engage with her Little Grey Cells

I like lots of media other than TV Yes, both as a consumer and as a marketing professional. But I do this job because I have a strong sense of injustice; no medium is more undervalued or misrepresented than TV. It’s a mission.

TV, not the TV That’s what I represent and care about. The cultural importance of that professionally produced content can’t be overstated and it needs serious money to maintain the quality and range we currently enjoy. I couldn’t care less what technology delivers it or what screen you watch it on.

The internet is not a medium It’s more important than that and more like electricity. It’s a transforming technology that can change and improve many things. Search is a medium, email marketing is a medium and as such competitors to TV advertising. But the internet is not a competitor.

Is the internet is the best thing that’s ever happened to TV? I could make a jolly good case. Search and social give instant proof of TV’s impact. TV advertising is becoming even more effective in part because of instant search and online purchasing. And then of course TV itself isexpanding through online distribution.

TV: the original social medium? I championed, set up and oversaw PHD’s interactive division, PHDiQ, from 2001. I could always see its potential. But I didn’t really immerse myself personally until 2004 when I discovered the online communities for an amazing Channel 4 comedy called Green Wing back in 2004. No-one I knew was watching it but I was desperate to share my enthusiasm and to air my theories about it.

I’m campaigning against the word ‘digital’ It’s not fit for purpose and particularly confusing when it comes to TV. In the UK, broadcast TV is 100% digital, but nothing to do with the internet. It also keeps people in an incoherent silo. The word ‘still’ also drives me mad People think they are being nice when they say ‘people still watch a lot of TV’ or TV advertising still works”. Still is the word you use for a 90-year-old who can walk upstairs. There are still a few internet ‘fundamentalists’ out there You know, the nutters who wish death on anything that isn’t delivered by the internet. They’re disappearing fast, but I love a good argument so I shall probably miss them a bit. Mind you, it would be a better contest if they could get their facts right before picking a fight. 1st or 2nd screen? Some people get upset when TV is described as the 1st screen, or the ‘lead’ medium. If you are doing your homework online with the TV on then I wouldn’t call that 2-screening; it’s just multi-tasking. But when people are doing something that links the two screens then I think it’s always the TV that catalyses the activity on the other device, hence 1st screen or lead medium. It’s about chronology not status.

If you’re worried about the future of advertising ask teenagers Just go onto the street and stop young people and ask them what their favourite ad is. More than 99% of the time it will be a TV ad. However much they love social media they don’t love – or recall – the ads there. Accountabilty is not the same as effectiveness TV ads work better than ever and than anything, but are not easy to track. Worth taking the time to analyse properly though… TV is the word of choice New words for new forms of TV are seductive but we always have to go back to ‘TV’ when we talk to consumers. Google TV, Apple TV – not ‘video’. It’s an aspirational word that conveys quality. There’ll be loads more video around but it won’t all be worthy of being called TV.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose Technology is revolutionising TV delivery. But human beings don’t change much. They like stories, and sharing and someone to take the hard work out of choosing. That should all mean that linear live TV via channels has a strong future, but with lots of additional TV in new places, on new devices at new times.

When it comes to books on marketing You can’t beat The Origin of Species. Survival of the fittest has nothing to do with going to the gym; it’s about adaptability. TV is adapting well. Evolution is unplanned – a series of random mutations, some of which prove to be beneficial. We need to make enough space and time in our businesses for some random mutation, and encourage creative serendipity. Who knows what joys will come out of it.

Creating propositions that fulfil their audience’s need, are easy for the man in the street to understand and use, and that never make you feel foolish or frustrated.

I got into technology when I was about 12 years old:

I made a hot belt surface mount reflow machine and a robot pick-and-place machine. It was a robot system to assemble circuit boards with miniaturised technology – probably not something the average school kid had in his bedroom.

I designed circuit-boards for Panasonic and Apple. I made ones that were explosion-proof and that could go down coal mines, and I made consumer electronics. I formed my own one-man company – and then at some point, I figured I needed to grow the company or figure out something else to do.

Maybe I was tired of getting my hair burnt with the soldering iron, but a friend said there was an opportunity to get into real-time 3D graphics, and put together a software team making interactive movies, for the SEGA platform.

In the 1990s I decided to switch from hardware to software. I have been in consumer media propositions since then. First with real-time 3D graphics, then with a digital music store, then Kazaa, then with BBC iPlayer and now on Zeebox.

Developing the iPlayer taught me that you should never do what people tell you to do:

I was hired by the BBC to take on the iPlayer. It had been developed but was not ready to be launched as a consumer proposition. I initially thought the problem was going to be with the technology choices – but I quickly realised that the tech-team were being pulled in different directions.

Whenever somebody asks you to make something, you should unpick the ‘what’ it is that they are asking for. Any implied ‘how you should do it’ – you should throw away. Once you do that, things become clearer.

With the software developers I work with now, I encourage them to listen to the spirit of what I want, to completely ignore the way that I tell them to do it and to come up with a way that surprises and delights me – even more than the way I had suggested.

The concept behind Zeebox:

It allows you to turn TV into a new type of two-way interactive experience. We used to watch TV, and it would wash over you. Those days are gone, everyone now has tablets and smartphones and they are doing stuff on them as they watch TV.

Zeebox converts TV from being a solitary experience that is not interactive into something that is social: it helps you find things to watch based on what is popular, what’s trending, what your friends are watching and server recommendations.

The person who inspired me most as a kid was Bertrand Russell:

He was an iconoclast, so different and so often happy to speak his mind even though it was at odds with what society expected at the time. I must admit re-reading him many years later, he was non-PC and somewhat outdated.

Many years ago thought, I found it inspiring to both read his entirely logical analysis of fuzzy philosophical areas and observe somebody who could be an expert in the completely different domains of philosophy and mathematics.

I love living in London:

It is the centre of the media world in Europe. Our office is in Covent Garden, and most of the media world is within walking distance. Compare that to Silicon Valley or LA, where you’ll spend hours driving around – in London you can move from Google to Facebook to Twitter – to a media agency to some start-ups – all within a 15-minute walk.

What I really love doing the most is working with smart team members turning ideas into reality:

Ideas are cheap and implementation is expensive. There are always more things that you can think of, than you can possibly execute. The thing that gets me out of bed in the morning, is the excitement I get when you brainstorm an idea and then figuring out how it can be implemented.

I also love making technology building blocks that can be used for today’s needs as well as the unknown needs of tomorrow. If you get it right you can innovate and deliver new features way faster than your competitors, and hopefully as fast as your users would like them.

Marketing is about selling with wit, humour and style...Tim Healey catches up with Richard Hall, best-selling author of business books that have been published in 24 countries.

Q. We’ve had the Arab spring – is this a marketing spring? A. If you mean by ‘this; that the rules been rewritten and we are experiencing seismic change? Then, yes, it’s a new game and a new world. And as Steve Peters author of The Chimp Paradox and aide to the British Olympic team said: (i) Life is unfair (ii) They keep on moving the goalposts (iii) All we can do is try our best.

Q. What the hell sort of world is this anyway?

A. It’s fantastic and getting better. I can’t think of a single thing that isn’t getting better. We live in a world that is more creative and innovative than ever, a world where truly anything is possible. I’m quite old I suppose – don’t feel it – yet I’ve never seen so much opportunity or excitement. So next time you hear someone moaning hit them – for me.

Q. A good time to be a banker then?

A. No it’s a terrible time to be a banker. You’ll be regulated out of sight, derided and generally treated as you deserve (unlike artists who you’ll seek to patronise with your great wealth). Rather than data-driven businesses, this is a great time to be doing creative things.

Q. So what about marketing? Isn’t it just spin-doctoring by another name?

A. Marketing is about selling with wit, humour and style. It’s about identifying a need or desire, meeting it and packaging up the whole thing in a thrilling way. Like Selfridges does; like Apple does. It’s intellectually stimulating and thrilling to create brands– check out the OneDollarShaveClub to see what I mean.

Q. What are your worst marketing stories?…

Two bad stories are the Church of England that has wrecked a brilliant logo, great retail premises, a fantastic story with a great sales proposition through in-fighting over trivial issues. The Tesco story is (suddenly) pretty bad too – victims of their own certainty. The ubiquitous Tesco logo is something they’ll come to regret as their invasion of every High Street and back street is betrayed by an increasingly challenged product offering.

A. … and the best ones?

A. Ben & Jerry – quirky, funny and in love with their consumers. Apple – until now they’ve been magical. They treat marketing as though they were creating a thriller.

Q. Why did you write the book Brilliant Marketing?

A. Masochism apart…because writing’s a get-up-at-5am-business. I wrote the first edition in 2008 as an anthem to the thrill of seduction – well, that’s one way of looking at marketing. The idea was to write the definitive descriptive handbook about marketing and changing people’s minds.

Q. And what has most changed since you wrote version one?

A. When I was asked to write a second edition in 2011 I realised I was into a complete re-write because so much had changed. Social media had transformed the way marketers think and consumers behave. The cost of entry for new brands was radically reduced. Everything was new, improved or old and dying. Suddenly the world had become full of new things ….it was like living in the 1960s all over again. It was a world where selling was OK.

Q. Is quality improving?

A. Consumers are becoming smarter. A Gucci handbag looks great, makes you feel great and lasts forever. Generation Z are leaders in buying-less-and-buying-better. Cheap fashion falls apart, luxury fashion doesn’t. One glass of a £50 Balvenie Single Malt beats the hell out of three glasses of Asda own label.

Q. Any advice for a young entrepreneur?

A. Follow what Ralph Waldo Emerson told us – ‘create a luxury mousetrap that is really better, my son or daughter, and the customer will beat a pathway to your door’.

Q. So how can leaders or people like you create the future?

A. They/we can’t. The era of the old-fashioned/headmaster leader is dead although (unsurprisingly) most leaders don’t see this. Command and control is over. The future will be created by all of us, by a generation of innovators who don’t listen to authority and sometimes bash down doors just because they’re there. Marketing will be a leader in this reconstruction of the way we think if we attract the right talent. After all – who’d be in hedge funds and calculus instead?

Richard Hall blogs here and his book Brilliant Marketing: What the Best Marketers know do and say is available at all online stores